


shared paths unraveling behind us like ribbons

by coloredink



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cooking, Food, Food is Not People, Future Fic, Hannibal is Hannibal, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Murder Husbands, Nobody Dies, Will Knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 07:04:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4338626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The front door opened.  "Will!" Hannibal called.  "We have company for dinner!"</p><p>Will froze, knife in hand, while his heartbeat ratcheted up so furiously that he felt lightheaded.  Hannibal had given no sign that he was even contemplating a return to his old ways; where were their extra passports; how long did they have until the authorities noticed; they would probably have to dump the car, and Will had just washed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shared paths unraveling behind us like ribbons

**Author's Note:**

> [emungere](http://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere)'s fault.

The front door opened. "Will!" Hannibal called. "We have company for dinner!"

Will froze, knife in hand, while his heartbeat ratcheted up so furiously that he felt lightheaded. Hannibal had given no sign that he was even contemplating a return to his old ways; where were their extra passports; how long did they have until the authorities noticed; they would probably have to dump the car, and Will had just washed it.

Then he heard more voices. Will's shoulders grew even more tense.

Hannibal came into the kitchen. Will glared at him. Hannibal returned it with a neutral, even affable expression. "Have you started the pasta?"

"No, I was waiting for you," Will said through his teeth. Hannibal filled the pasta pot, salted the water, and put it on the stove to boil.

"Is the asado ready?" Hannibal asked.

"Yeah, the meat's skewered and ready to go." Will went back to chopping parsley instead of punching Hannibal in the face.

"I'll make a salad," Hannibal declared. "That should be more than enough food. But please, come meet our guests; we're being abominably rude."

He left Will standing in the kitchen, staring out the window with knife in hand, wondering what had gone wrong with his life. Well, he amended, plenty had gone wrong with his life; it was probably faster and easier to make a list of what hadn't. He put down the knife, washed his hands, and dried them on his apron.

Their guests were about Hannibal's age, a man and a woman. A couple, judging from their matching wedding rings; people of some means, judging from the woman's dress and handbag and the man's cufflinks. Hannibal had poured them both glasses of wine and invited them to sit at the table. Presently, he turned and smiled at Will. "Will, this is Marcos and Camila Varela. We met at the book fair."

Will favored them both with a small, tight smile as he shook their hands. "Pleased to meet you." He turned to Hannibal. "I'm going to put the meat on now."

Hannibal gave Will a fond smile and touched his hip. "I'll be there in a moment."

Will was glad to escape to the back yard, where flames leapt cheerfully from the firepit. He waved the flies away and dropped a row of raw skewers on the grate. They landed with a satisfying sizzle. Will had prepared twelve skewers; with two guests they would each have three. He thought about what else they had in the refrigerator.

"I think it will be sufficient food," said Hannibal.

Will jumped. Hannibal was just behind him, peering down onto the row of skewers. "Dinner will perhaps be a little lighter than we had anticipated."

"Why did you bring them here?" Will hissed.

Hannibal gave him another one of those mild, inscrutable looks. "I wanted you to meet," he said, and went back into the kitchen, where Will could see him, through the window, dump fettucine into the pot of water.

\-----

"Delicioso!" Camila rolled her eyes in rapture. "Two such excellent cooks, living under the same roof--every meal must be a feast!"

"We share a partnership in this, as we do in everything else," Hannibal said, using his fork to pull meat from his skewer onto his plate. "Will takes care of the meat, and I take care of the rest. He has a gift for working with fire."

"It's just grilling," Will mumbled. "Grilling's easy."

"So, how did you meet?" Camila asked.

Will shot Hannibal a look of deep suffering. Hannibal beamed at him, eyes crinkling. "We had colleagues in common who introduced us," he said. "I knew from the very moment I first laid eyes on him that Will was unique, and it wasn't long afterward that I was determined to make him mine."

"It took me a little while longer to get the memo," Will muttered as he stabbed salad leaves onto his fork. "But," he went on, without making eye contact, "he coaxed me out of my...chrysalis, you could say." Below the table, Hannibal put his hand on Will's knee and squeezed.

"Shades of my own courtship with Camila." Marcos laid his broad, well-tanned hand over Camila's own, and they smiled at each other. "Oh, how this one gave me a chase! But I don't think I've given her cause to regret giving in at last."

"Men cherish what they have to work for. Marcos treats me very well," Camila said. "He even came to the book fair with me, even though he hasn't read a novel since high school."

"What is important to you is important to me," said Marcos.

Will contemplated stabbing himself with a skewer. If he put it through his eye, things would go dark very quickly. Then he contemplated stabbing Hannibal instead.

Hannibal did not offer the Varelas dessert beyond glasses of malbec, and Will was almost startled by the selfish gladness that sprang up in his breast. He drained his glass quickly and took his time stacking the dishwasher. By the time he returned to the dining room, Hannibal was bringing the Varelas their coats.

"Thank you very much for dinner," said Marcos. "It was marvelous."

"Yes; we hope we can return the favor," said Camila.

"I'll leave you my card," said Marcos, flashing the tiny rectangle between his fingers and dropping it on the dining room table.

Will stared at the card long after the door had closed behind them.

"Seriously," he said, when Hannibal returned, "why did you bring them here?"

Hannibal went into the kitchen, where he gathered the flat pastry discs he had left on the counter, earlier in the day. Since Will had placed himself in charge of the asado, Hannibal had committed himself to pastry with ferocious precision. Will followed him into the kitchen and leaned against the counter as he watched Hannibal spread dulce de leche on each disc.

"What did you expect me to do?" Hannibal asked without taking his eyes from his task.

Will had spent the majority of dinner with his eyes on Hannibal's hands as he handled the skewers; his knife; each time he rose from the table to refresh their glasses of wine. He had not been good company, but the Varelas had been polite.

"I won't say the thought didn't cross my mind." Hannibal stacked the discs. Dulce de leche oozed from between the layers. He took a bowl of egg whites from the refrigerator and began to beat them. "I can be quite impulsive, as you know. But I wanted to show you that I could restrain myself."

Will's hand curled into a fist on the counter. "So, what, if in the future you _do_ stab someone at the dinner table I'll know that you could've chosen not to?"

Hannibal frowned at him, but he didn't cease his steady, rapid whisking. "You could thank me."

"I'm not going to thank you for _not_ killing people!" Will exclaimed.

Silence exploded between them. Hannibal turned his back to Will, and Will watched the steady, repetitive motion of his elbow, listened to the scrape of the metal wires against the bottom of the bowl.

Will opened his mouth, then closed it and pressed the tip of his tongue between his teeth. "Want me to get the sugar?" he said at last.

"Yes, please. Eight tablespoons."

Will fetched the jar of sugar and began sprinkling spoonfuls of sugar into the bowl as Hannibal continued to whisk. After the eighth one, he felt a little calmer, and the egg whites had transformed from a soupy white mass to fluffy clouds. The miracle of denatured proteins.

"I'm sorry," Will said. "You're making an effort."

Hannibal said nothing.

"It's been a year," Will said. "I just wanted a nice dinner with the two of us."

"I know," said Hannibal. "I apologize. The invitation itself was impulsive, perhaps. In part, I wanted to see what would happen."

"And did you like the outcome?"

"Not as much as I would have if it'd been us alone. But I saved us dessert." Hannibal began to spoon out dollops of the meringue onto the cake, twisting the spatula at the end to form little peaks. "If you would fetch the kitchen torch, you may do the honors. I meant it when I said you have a gift for working with fire."

\---end---

**Author's Note:**

> [coloredink.tumblr.com](http://coloredink.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [sumiwrites.wordpress.com](https://sumiwrites.wordpress.com/) (if you wanna see the books I've written)


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